Last updated on August 13th, 2017 at 02:05 pm
This recipe is a tribute to my favorite fruits (besides watermelons): oranges! I had forgotten how much I love, love, love oranges – their smell, their taste, pure delicious freshness.
I found myself thinking about that freshness blend into a cheesecake-y thing a few weeks ago when I was going to bed.
Tossing and turning in my sleep that night I couldn’t wait to turn my idea into reality the next day.
Needless to say the next day – I had bought everything to make what turned out to be the freshest tastiest “cheesecake”.
It’s raw.
And vegan.
And if you use GF oats – also gluten free.
Plus if you don’t even want to make a crust – just leave it. You’ll save yourself some time and you can commit to the best part – the mind-blowing naturally sweet gluten-free orange-cashew-coconut filling. I think next time I won’t be making a crust here.
And if you’re thinking – raw vegan cheesecake is just a sad try, you might be right if you’re looking for something heavy and very sweet.
But if you’re looking for something tangy, vibrant, fresh, yet creamy, light and awesome – you might find these little cups just right.
In fact let’s not call them cheesecake cups. Cheese cannot live up to the awesomeness of these magnificent cups.
I used to not like vegan cheesecake – I tried to make one once upon a time, tasted it and decided it could not resemble vomit more. I asked my dog – “Does this taste like vomit?”. He just ate it all.
That’s a lie. I don’t have a dog – it was me.
But these magnificent cups right here have nothing in common with that old stinky cheesecake – they’re fresh, sweet, but not too sweet, creamy and just wonderful.
It feels right to devour them daily – loaded with heart-healthy nuts and only 1 tsp of antibacterial honey (if you decide to make the crust).
It’s all sweet enough from the natural sweetness of the orange, coconut and cashew nuts. The 1 tsp honey is for the omega-3 and antioxidant-rich base.
The other good thing about these cups is that they’re raw – so all the good stuff remains in there. You can freeze them and eat them day by day for 1 or two weeks and then make them again. That’s what I do and it makes me insanely happy.
As they’re raw – they don’t hold together that well when they’re not frozen – so I just let them unfreeze a little (around 3-4 min) and then hello heaven.
HEALTH AND BEAUTY BENEFITS
These orange coconut cups are:
- high protein
- high fiber
- anti-inflammatory
- antioxidant
- collagen-boosting
One of my favorite things about these raw orange coconut cups is that they help you produce yourself some collagen almost for free, because they’re high in vitamin C – and vitamin C, in case you don’t know it – makes wrinkles disappear.
WHAT ELSE WILL YOU NEED?
Make sure you get organic oranges for this recipe because we need the peel as well and it shouldn’t contain those carcinogens that are used for preserving this amazing fruit. You only need one orange for this.
You’ll also need some silicone cups (this sounds wrong) for these.
It makes it easier to pop them out, but it takes a while until you have all the base spread.
The best part of this orange coconut beauty bites is however the filling – therefore you can even omit the base – it’s healthy on its own, not only raw, high-vitamin C and vegan but also gluten-free and it’s a lot faster.
These magical raw orange-coconut beauty bites are refreshing, tasty, good as a snack or whenever you need something sweet - no added sugar.
Ingredients
- 1 cup cashew nuts – soaked over night (150g)
- 1 orange ORGANIC – juice and peal
- ½ lemon - juiced
- 1 cup coconut flakes ground into flour
- 1 cup oats (ground into flour)
- 1/2 cup walnuts
- 1 tbsp honey
- 1 tsp cinnamon
Instructions
- First make the filling – remove soaking water from cashews, place in a food processor and blend with the juice of ½ lemon and 1 small/medium orange. Then add ½ cup ground coconut flakes and process until smooth and heavenly delicious. Depending on how much juice the orange has – you might need to put more coconut flakes. The first time I put only ½ orange, so I only needed a few spoons of coconut flakes, but with a whole orange I need between ½ and 1 cup of coconut flakes. Make sure the mixture is thick enough – it shouldn’t be runny.
- If you want to leave out the crust – which I feel like I am almost advising you to do – you can fill small silicone muffin cups with the filling and store them in the freezer – this way they’ll keep fresh and it’s also a great way not to overeat on them.
- If you’d like to make the crust – process ground oats with walnuts, honey and cinnamon together in your food processor until crumbly. Then place 1 tbsp of it into a silicone muffin cup and press smooth with your fingers.
Notes
The filling is gluten-free, vegan, raw, antioxidant, anti-inflammatory, heart-healthy
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